TAKE CARE OF YOUR EARS... - Goan ObserverGoan Observer

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TAKE CARE OF YOUR EARS…

WHEN a health issue catches up with us we suddenly become conscious anew of self-maintenance and self-discipline! At least this is how it works for me and last week when I thought I was going deaf in my left ear from which strange popping sounds were emanating, I decided to make catch up with my favorite senior most ENT specialist Dr Deepak Murty at the Manipal hospital. He took a look into my ears and said “katchra pati” or something equivalent to that…do you know that ear fungus is called “otomycosis”?
Dr Murty used an otoscope and a syringe to wash and pick out a shocking block of dark wax mass to show me, I forgot to take a picture of it, forgive me! As for the left ear which was the one in trouble he prescribed ear drops three times a day and to return to see him after three days.
I learned the importance of many things to do with the ear and how every bit of body beautiful is connected, never mind that there are as many specialists focusing on just one bit or two or three bits in mainstream Allopathy healthcare. Which we know now is more vastly pharma drugs-driven than anything else, although my doctor friends won’t like me saying this one bit – some of course do acknowledge this themselves. What I don’t understand is why even the Ayurveda vaid or AYUSH doctors want to prefix their names with “Dr” and one is confused about which healthcare or medicine school they are doctors of. I feel they’re all trying to give the impression that they are doctors of Allopathy too because they are so much more learned!
BUT to stay with my left ear popping issue I returned to Dr Murty and he removed a considerably softened junk coating my ear drum. The good thing about him is that he tells you precisely what he is going to do, “There will be no pain, do not move your head.” Of course if there is even a moderate amount of pain my teeth and hands clenched and head flinched voluntarily! So it went and he said okay, he’s done, he won’t remove anything more.
I asked if it is okay to drop hydrogen peroxide into ears to cleanse it, he said it’s okay but learn how to do it right. Should one get one’s ears cleansed annually? He shrugged, if there is an issue. When did I last get my ears cleansed professionally? For the life of me I couldn’t remember, some 30 years ago in Mumbai that was Bombay!
He was in a hurry for another patient awaited him in the ICU, patient who had a tumor in his neck and this was very serious. Dr Murty is an ENT doctor, ear-neck-throat specialist, he said put a drop of pure coconut oil in my ear at home. My left ear feeling like it had been vacuum cleansed and for a while I felt strange for the fuzzy deafness of the past two weeks had gone, hurrah.
Dr Murty is one of the few Goan doctors I know who has an amazing fitness story to tell. Once upon a time he was an ailing doctor and then he made sweeping changes in his dietary habits, he started eating nachne/ragi millet roti or chapatti with salads, and yes, it made the amazing difference for the better. He’s one of the fitter doctors in Goa…write down your breakfast, lunch and dinner menu for me I begged and he smiled, he had to go, bye.
BUT he got me thinking about our ears the whole of this week and how every tiny part of the body beautiful is connected and has a bearing on each other. Of course only a good GP would take a wholistic diagnosis before advising a patient what may be bothering him or her and what to do about it…but GPs are in short supply today. Most have become specialists or super specialists and more want to be oncologists, cancer specialists. Seeing how much cancer we are wooing with our miserable and feckless lifestyles nowadays…most of us really don’t understand what cancer is until one day we wake up and find, hey, this here is cancer visible on the body or invisibly hurting inside the body as if something is festering – oh, the pain! We wait for pain to manifest before we go posthaste to doctors…so what is preventive healthcare, my dears.

I’ve more or less got convinced that bad nutrition is at the bottom of all disease and especially the degenerative ones which catch up with us in our post-50 years. It is not necessarily just because we are living longer with better sanitation, lots of food…but better nutrition? If we are conscious of better food, we are not conscious of the need to work the body too for movement is crucial to keep muscles working, or they will rusticate till all energy is gone. Food and muscle power equals energy drive.
All this I was forced to remind myself anew this whole of last week beginning with my left ear blues, plus, plus, there’re a few more things I have to sort out. We grow old and older and we have to overcome the feeling that we are no longer able to run around, go out for long stretches, no longer able to cope with house chores and cooking – mercifully, life is kind if we have a roof over our head, a few mod con conveniences to take care of washing clothes, some help with sweeping and swabbing the floors and washing bathroom. Boring domestic chores to outgrow some day!
AT one time I can still recall how most cooking in homes was done at ground level and all sat on the floor cross-legged to eat – brunch was as early as 9am in the morning, before everyone in the family walked off to their offices or workplaces. Then it was early supper in the evening, after that perhaps a walk in the neighborhood and off to bed soon after sunset, some staying in bed reading till sleep took over. I had a aunt, my Neela-foi, who strictly said put off the lights at 10 am and it was such a joy to get up feeling fresh the next morning to the call of birds in their trees outside at the balcony and lawns.

Sigh. So much changes as we old and older. The folk we loved and who returned the compliments are gone with the wind. Latter days of sedentary living piles on the weight steadily and before we know it, boom! This, that or other health issue keeps rearing its head…very few of us plan life post our 50s, we think and live like we’ll be minus 50s forever! Well, think about it all for it is never too late to take stock of life at whatever stage of it we are. Yes, I may tell you here that my friends who sold out in favor of retiring to a seniors facility are far happier than my friends who still cling on their lovely flats inherited from their parents and which they no longer have the energy to keep clean or alive with activity…there’s always some relative or another waiting for them to kick the bucket or so to speak. Life is no longer a pleasure to live but a punishment from year to year, month to month, day to day and later on I guess from hour to hour. Think about all this now and plan the rest of your life regardless of how long you may be blessed or cursed with life!